When Schiller penned his Aesthetic Letters shortly following the French Revolution, he saw the "play drive" as a virtuous alternative to the violence that had engulfed the world of politics, a force capable of reconciling the conflict between human beings' material, sensuous nature and their capacity for reason. Much of the subsequent history of aesthetic theory hinges on this vision of creativity as a redemptive alternative to the fallen world of modernity. But gaming is serious business.